Two US Womens Beach Teams in 2nd Round

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (May 3, 2012) – Two U.S. women’s beach volleyball teams have advanced to the second round of elimination at the Shanghai Grand Slam in China, the first grand slam event on the 2012 FIVB Beach Volleyball SWATCH World Tour.

The teams of Misty May-Treanor (Santa Monica, Calif.) and Kerri Walsh (San Jose, Calif.), seeded fourth, and fifth-ranked Jen Kessy (San Juan Capistrano, Calif.) and April Ross (Costa Mesa, Calif.), both went undefeated in pool play to advance to the second round, which will be played on Friday.

In the men’s bracket, the top-seeded U.S. team of Phil Dalhausser (Ormond Beach, Fla.) and Todd Rogers (Santa Barbara, Calif.) won its first two pool play matches on Thursday while the other three U.S. men’s beach volleyball teams all went 1-1.

In their final pool play match, May-Treanor and Walsh defeated Australia’s 13th-ranked Louise Bawden and Becchara Palmer, 21-12, 21-16 in 37 minutes. The U.S. team advanced to the second round of elimination where it will play Spain’s 16th-ranked Liliana Fernández Steiner and Elsa Baquerizo Mcmillan on Friday.

Kessy and Ross also had a relatively easy victory over Belgium’s 12th-ranked Liesbeth Mouha and Katrien Gielen on Thursday, winning 21-13, 21-13 in 33 minutes.

“We had a super tough match against Greece in the first match yesterday and it went 32-30 in the second set, but we pulled it off and we were super excited to have half a day off today,” Ross said in an FIVB press release.

The three wins allowed them to top their pool, avoid the round of 24 and go straight into the round of 16. There they will meet Australia’s 24th-ranked Natalie Cook and Tamsin Hinchley.

“They are on fire and playing really good; serving well and blocking well,” Ross added. “It will be tough. They were underdogs and came from behind to beat Italy (Greta Cicolari and Marta Menegatti), so we are going to have to be at our best to take them down.”

The U.S. women’s team of Lauren Fendrick (Carlsbad, Calif.) and Brooke Hanson (Woodland Hills, Calif.), seeded 15th, lost its final pool play match on Thursday to Brazil’s No. 2-seeded Talita Da Rocha Antunes and Maria Antonelli, 21-19, 21-17 in 39 minutes.

Fendrick and Hanson advanced to the first round of elimination on Thursday, where they lost to Spain’s Fernández Steiner and Baquerizo Mcmillan, 21-14, 24-26, 15-11 in 53 minutes. They finished the tournament tied for 17th.

On the men’s side, Dalhausser and Rogers’ first match of the day proved to be a battle as they needed 1 hour, 10 minutes to defeat China’s 32nd-seeded Shun Zhou and Jian Li, 21-18, 17-21, 22-20.

The U.S. team’s second pool play victory over Latvia’s 17th-seeded Aleksandrs Samoilous and Ruslans Sorokins was much easier, 21-12, 21-12 in 36 minutes.

On Friday, Dalhausser and Rogers will play Germany’s 16th-seeded Hase Klemperer and Eric Koreng. The first round of elimination will also be played on Friday.

Matt Fuerbringer (Costa Mesa, Calif.) and Nick Lucena (Santa Barbara, Calif.), ranked eighth, won their first pool play match against Austria’s 25th-ranked Alexander Huber and Robin Seidl, 21-19, 21-19 in 467 minutes. The U.S. pair lost its second match to Kazakhstan’s 24th-seeded Alexey Sidorenko and Alexandr Dyachenko, 21-19, 18-21, 18-16 in 58 minutes.

Jake Gibb (Bountiful, Utah) and Sean Rosenthal (Redondo Beach, Calif.), seeded 14th, lost their first pool play match to Germany’s 19th-ranked Sebastian Dollinger and Stefan Windscheif, 21-19, 26-28, 15-13 in 1 hour. They came back to win their second match over Great Britain’s 30th-seeded Steven Grotowski and John Garcia-Thompson, 21-11, 21-13 in 32 minutes.

On Friday, Gibb and Rosenthal will finish pool play against Netherlands’ third-ranked Reinder Nummerdor and Richard Schuil.

Brad Keenan (Westminster, Calif.) and John Mayer (Thousand Oaks, Calif.), who had to qualify for the main draw and are seeded 29th, lost their first match to Brazil’s fourth-ranked Ricardo Santos and Pedro Cunha, 21-19, 19-21, 15-10 in 55 minutes. The U.S. team came back in their second match to defeat Czech Republic’s 13th-seeded Premysl Kubala and Petr Benes, 21-11, 16-21, 20-18-20 in 47 minutes.

They will finish pool play on Friday against Latvia’s 20th-seeded Martins Plavins and Janis Smedins.

Complete information about the FIVB World Tour is available on the FIVB web site.